In modern society, efforts are ongoing to prevent or lessen undesirable environmental impacts resulting from discharge of contaminants into the environment. On construction job sites, steps are being taken to lessen or eliminate environmental contamination resulting from uncontrolled discharge into the environment of waste contaminants such as concrete slurry, concrete sediment, concrete equipment washout effluents; waste paint and solvents; waste stucco mixtures; waste mortar mix; and other construction waste materials resulting from the construction processes.
Various portable concrete washout inventions and systems have been developed as tools in the ongoing efforts by society to contain liquids and other flowable materials.
The present invention is a foldable concrete washout and waste containment unit having a support box having a folding bottom floor and folding sides that depend upward from the floor and constructed from a substantially rigid stock sheet material: paper, paperboard, corrugated cardboard, fiberboard, corrugated plastic sheet material, or other suitable sheet material of appropriate weight.
An object of the present invention is to provide an inexpensive, disposable and easily deployable and retrievable waste containment unit having a novel open-topped generally rectangular-based support box and having a flexible liner or flexible bag disposed within and supported by the support box. After use at a location involving the receiving and holding of waste materials, the present waste containment unit is intended to be movable with the received and retained waste materials to an appropriate disposal location.
When used for waste concrete materials and concrete washout effluents, the waste within the waste containment unit often may consolidate and cure into a solid slab that can be moved for disposal by a user using a fork lift truck by placing the forks of the truck under the floor of the unit and lifting for subsequent movement of the unit to a disposal location or for placement into a suitably sized trash dumpster or into or onto some other disposal conveyance or receptacle.
In a preferred embodiment, the waste containment unit is made from two flat, die-cut, pre-scored half unit blanks, each blank having a generally rectangular central floor and an integral isosceles trapezoidal endwall contiguous to the floor along one edge of the floor and the endwall sandwiched between two integral opposite trapezoidal sidewalls, each sidewall respectively contiguous to the floor along opposite edges of the floor and each sidewall attached to the adjacent endwall, and the floor having an open floor edge opposite to the endwall; and the blanks aligned with respective floors coplanar and aligned with respective open floor edges facing adjacent one another and each sidewall of one blank attached to an adjacent sidewall of the other blank; and a flexible liner is disposed into and retained within the joined blanks that comprise the support box.
In the preferred embodiment, the waste containment unit is a generally square-based truncated four-sided pyramid shaped open top container having four interior corners, the open top container having an upper inner perimeter opening and two sidewalls and two endwalls inwardly sloped from towards the floor to the upper inner perimeter opening.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a waste containment unit that is more convenient and easier to use than prior art waste containment units.
The present invention relates to a novel concrete washout and waste containment invention comprising a support box having a folding floor, folding sidewalls, and folding endwalls that provides a useful portable waste containment unit that can be transported to a job site or other place for use in a compact, closed condition and once there articulated to an open condition to receive and contain waste materials, and that helps protect against release of the liquids and chemicals and other waste materials into the environment.